R.I.'s senators to vote against Gorsuch

Friday

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Rhode Island's two Democratic U.S. senators, Sheldon Whitehouse and Jack Reed, say they cannot vote for President Trump's nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court, Neil Gorsuch.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Rhode Island's two Democratic U.S. senators, Sheldon Whitehouse and Jack Reed, say they cannot vote for President Trump's nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court, Neil Gorsuch.

Senator Jack Reed said Friday afternoon that after carefully examining Gorsuch's judicial record and listening to his testimony, "I believe he is a poor choice for the United States Supreme Court."

Whitehouse, who played an active role in this week's confirmation hearings, told The Journal on Friday morning that he feels he "gave Judge Gorsuch every chance" during the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee hearings, "and indeed pressed him and pressed him on the issues I think are the dominant ones and I came away dissatisfied ... [and] am not in a position to vote for his confirmation."

Gorsuch is a federal appeals court judge in Denver. The Senate committee vote on his nomination to the Supreme Court is anticipated on April 3.

Whitehouse cited his concern with reinstating a Republican-appointee majority on the court that, when the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was alive, "issued so many partisan 5-to-4 decisions ... whose results really became so dishearteningly predictable. And the second was some sense that the flood of money into politics after Citizens United has had an evil effect on our democracy."

"I wanted at least some signal or sense from him that he saw these as legitimate public concerns. I am not sure I needed him to go as far as fully agreeing with me, but I really couldn't get anything out from behind his screen of platitudes," Whitehouse said.

Asked if there was any Republican he could support for an appointment to the high court, Whitehouse said yes, but declined to provide any names. He also said there is no wheeling-and-dealing, at this time, for Democratic votes that involve the choice of a nominee for the U.S. District Court opening in Rhode Island.

Reed, in a statement issued Friday, said, "Judge Gorsuch is intellectually gifted, but I was not reassured by the substance of his answers, or lack thereof. During his hearing, and in our meeting, he repeatedly declined to answer even basic questions. This shortcoming was particularly driven home by Senator Whitehouse's questions related to the Citizens United decision, which has unleashed a torrent of problems and only increased political cynicism."

Reed said he believes Gorsuch has a "not-so-hidden agenda," whose record as a judge "shows that he repeatedly used concurring and dissenting opinions to go well beyond the facts of a case to make broad, ideological statements."

If Gorsuch is confirmed to the high court, Reed says he would worry that Gorsuch "would try to circumscribe voting rights and consumer protections; and impose new constraints on civil liberties and women’s health care and roll back clean air laws."

In other criticisms, Reed suggested that Gorsuch "seems to favor the expansion of corporate power over individual rights;" has a propensity for ruling against workers in labor and employment disputes; and many of his legal decisions "are based on an overly narrow view of our laws."

On Thursday, U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., the Senate minority leader, announced that he too intended to vote no on Trump’s nominee and asked other Democrats to join him in blocking an up-or-down vote on Gorsuch in the Senate, where the rules require 60 votes to overcome such an obstacle.

The Republicans only have a slim 52-to-48 majority.

Amid threats that the GOP majority will try to change the rules, Schumer in a Senate floor speech said: "If this nominee cannot earn 60 votes — a bar met by each of President Obama’s nominees and George Bush’s last two nominees — the answer isn’t to change the rules. It’s to change the nominee," according to the Washington Post.

While the Republicans hold the majority, Whitehouse said it may not be easy to win a vote to simply change the rules from Republican senators who are "institutionalists," and who know from history that "the worm turns" as to who holds the presidency and the majority in the Senate and "some of their words may come back to haunt them."

— kgregg@providencejournal.com

(401) 277-7078

On Twitter: @kathyprojo

— kziner@providencejournal.com

(401) 277-7375

On Twitter: @karenleez

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